Deloris "Dela" Wilson
Deloris “Dela” Wilson is an experience and instructional designer, strategist and facilitator using the social practice of design to restore, repair and rebuild. She is interested in how we transform organisational dynamics for healthier communities, as well as deeper explorations of leadership, psychology, and their connections to activating the creative potential within each of us.
Born and raised in the American South, by an activist father who informed her armour and a spiritually-centered mother who stitched a softer pattern, Dela has worked to balance translation of angst, frustration and trauma latent in systemic injustices into processes for personal and community wellbeing.
She applies this lens to the design of experiences, products and interiors for the direct benefit of historically marginalized groups, thereby benefiting society as a whole. In 2016, she founded Axle Impact Studio to support mission-driven startups with brand, partnership and product development strategies. Axle has since scaled to a global design practice advising cultural institutions and innovation ecosystems through strategies that guide equitable futures. Axle's Reparative Design framework supports collaborators through an iterative methodology for contextualizing systemic inequities, connecting directly to communities of impact, and co-creating sustainable solutions at the intersections of UX/UI design, inclusion and belonging.
Axle's collaborative business model integrates networks of independent consultants, as well as individuals transitioning out of traditional employment into an understanding - and full acceptance - of their talent and inherent worth. It then activates through retreats, workshops, meeting and strategic planning facilitation, exhibitions, and executive coaching to shift culture across international portfolios.
Axle was informed through Dela's previous experiencing driving strategy and operations to build stronger ecosystems in support of women entrepreneurs in Washington, DC, defining metrics for cultural and behavioral change for innovators of color through HBCUvc, leading content strategy and product design for technology startups including Cycled, PushBlack, and HelloAlice, as well as current efforts to rethink our conception and use of promotional products, labour and rest through due goodies. She is the editor of Black Founders at Work, and served as the 2021-2022 Social Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business.
Dela is based where there is Wi-Fi (though home is Atlanta, Georgia) and is a summa cum laude graduate of Spelman College (BA), Harvard University (MPA), and Georgetown Law (JD).